Internet entrepreneur creates road bike with rings instead of stays

To be unveiled at the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show this weekend the Roundtail is the sort of bike guaranteed to raise the blood-pressure of UCI rule-makers. The Roundtail was developed by roadie Lou Tortola, an author and founder of eLiquid, a web services company headquartered in Canada. He's also the inventor of Current AGE digital signage.

The Roundtail will be produced in carbon and titanium in time for Interbike, said Tortola, and will also be available in MTB and commuter versions.

His idea to replace “straight to your bum seat stays" with shock-absorbing rings came to him on a long ride, he said.

With his experience in metals and fabrication, Tortola produced tooling to create rings to test his concept and, satisfied with the results, commissioned custom bike builder Paul Taylor to produce a bike.

"Finite Element Analysis shows that the Roundtail design provides ten times the vertical flex, and over sixty times the shock absorption of a traditional frame," said Tortola.

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